SIRC articles provide evidence-based and actionable insights from sport researchers, athletes, coaches, sport organizations and thought leaders to advance sport in Canada.
Concussions and Confidence: Why Mental Readiness Matters in Recovery
For most of her career, Jen Kish was known as one of the best and most fearless female players in rugby sevens. She captained Canada’s women’s team to an Olympic bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics. And, she also endured more than 30 concussions with only five of them formally diagnosed. “Your brain health…
Project Summary Currently, there is considerable public concern about youths’ healthy physical and psychosocial development. As such, researchers in both developmental and sport psychology highlight a need to better understand how organized sporting activities may be contributing to youths’ positive...
This is the second article in a two-part series about the links between nutrition and sport-related concussion. The first article focused on the role of nutrition in concussion recovery. This article focuses on the potential for nutrition to contribute to...
There has recently been an increasing number of athletes bravely coming forward to share their stories about the psychological distress and associated mental health challenges they experienced during their athletic careers (e.g., Michael Phelps, Gracie Gold, and Demar Derozan). Athletes...
When Canada works in harmony towards the same goal, much can happen in a short time. In March 2018, SIRC launched the “We Are Headstrong” campaign. Since that time we’ve seen signs of progress in the attitudes of Canadians toward...
Jenn Bruce and Jenny Davey, Canadian Paralympic Committee
Data driven. Evidence informed. Research to practice. No matter how you say it, a lot of us in the sport system are trying to figure out how to ensure the decisions we make are consistently based on the best possible...
Project Summary Previous research in the field of positive youth development has highlighted the importance of extracurricular activities, such as sport, in developing healthy youth (Larson, 2000, Petitpas et al., 2005). Further, the National Research Council Institute of Medicine (NRIM,...
Project Summary Purpose: Several studies have reported an age-related decline of physical activity (PA). We examined the impact of four transitional periods—adolescence, the beginning of post-secondary education, entry into the labour market, and parenthood—on the PA of participants in the...
Project Summary In both youth sport and education, children and adolescents are grouped into cohorts by using annual age grouping policies, whereby a child must be a certain age by a specified selection date (e.g., December 315). Relative age describes...
As we ease ourselves into the year ahead, here is a round-up of the most popular SIRCuit articles and SIRC blogs from 2019! Top 5 SIRCuit Articles Gender Equity is Good Governance – Lessons from the Sport Sector Cannabis and...
It’s a potent mix: dangerous flips and twists performed by young, boundary-pushing athletes who revel in the sport’s free-spirited culture. More than most sports, concussions are a day-to-day, moment-to-moment risk for the freestyle skiing community. The five demanding disciplines –...
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